Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It_ The Results-Only Revolution - Cali Ressler [30]
This is the nature of adaptive change. You start with a desired goal, then work your way toward that goal, regardless of where that process might take you.
Adaptive change is not what you typically find in corporate America. What you typically find in corporate America is technical change. Lots and lots of technical change.
Technical change is when the guy with the rolling bag comes in and teaches you tips and tricks and hints, but doesn’t challenge the core problem your company is facing.
Technical change is when you are presented with the flavor-of-the-month management technique and you’re supposed to pretend that it’s not going to be a distant memory in six months.
Technical change is when management praises this exciting new program for its employees, but management doesn’t have to change.
This is not to say that technical change doesn’t have its place. When you have a new benefits program and people need to know about how this program will change their compensation package, then technical training is completely appropriate. The new rules fit on a handout. They can be articulated in an e-mail. You can have an orientation meeting to give people the facts. And the reason these kinds of techniques work for something like a new benefits program is that the typical corporate policy doesn’t ask people to challenge how they behave.
ROWE, on the other hand, requires adaptive change. People have to act differently under this new way of working. You can’t put the changes that occur for people in an e-mail because a ROWE works differently for each person, each team, each division. It’s an ever-evolving process.
In fact, a key moment in the creation of a Results-Only Work Environment happened back before the Alternative Work Program pilot was implemented. Cali was assigned a change agent to make AWP happen. Cali and the change agent looked to other companies and steered the project toward examining best practices at other companies that were using flexible work arrangement programs. They created a lengthy guidebook about how to copy other programs. But the division leader of the AWP pilot didn’t want to see other people’s best practices. At one particular meeting he picked up the guidebook and said he never wanted to see anything like that again. He explained, in no uncertain terms, that this would be an organically grown movement that would not be dictated by best practices from other companies. Shortly after that meeting, the Human Resources representative removed herself from the project. Later, when Jody came on board, the focus was intensified on adaptive change.
The rejection of best practices was an important moment because from this point forward we were committed to real change. It was at this point that we had permission to disregard a solution that was comfortable and palatable. Instead we were committed to figuring out what people really needed and wanted and what was best for them. We were able to avoid the problem with so many changes in corporate America: They are fake changes; they are the flavor of the month. They look good and sound good and they seem to be addressing the problem, but they aren’t and they don’t.
Trying to create technical change for what is a social problem is usually a disaster. For example, before ROWE, employees complained about being in too many meetings. People said they couldn’t get their work done. People said they were stressed and unfocused. People needed relief.
So someone proposed technical change in the form of No-Meeting Wednesdays. On Wednesdays you were not to schedule any meetings. The idea was that Wednesday would be the day when people could catch up on the work that they couldn’t do the rest of the week because they were in too many meetings. The company invested time and money in training people on No-Meeting Wednesdays, promoting No-Meeting Wednesdays through flyers